Using light to control physical properties of polymers and surfaces with azobenzene chromophores
R. H. El Halabieh, O. Mermut, and C. J. Barrett
Department of Chemistry, McGill University, 801 Sherbrooke
Street West, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2K6 Canada
Abstract: Azobenzene chromophores can be switched between two
geometric isomers using visible light. This photoisomerization is rapid,
reversible, and of high quantum yield, and the wavelengths effecting
the transformation can be tuned synthetically with substituent groups
to the chromphores. Upon isomerization, there can be significant changes
to the optical, geometric, mechanical, and chemical properties of azobenzene
molecules, and these photo-switchable properties can often be transferred
to large host systems into which azobenzene is incorporated. This review
describes polymers and surfaces that have been prepared recently that
incorporate azobenzene groups, and some of the interesting physical
and chemical properties that can be switched reversibly as a result.
*Lecture presented at the symposium "Polymers in electronics and photonics: Synthesis, characterizations and device applications", as part of the 39th IUPAC Congress and 86th Conference of the Canadian Society for Chemistry: Chemistry at the Interfaces, Ottawa, Canada, 10-15 August 2003. Other Congress presentations are published in this issue, pp. 1295-1603.
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